


its own ways of making people disappear

by middlemarch



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: 007 Fest, Anger, Bach, Candles, Current Events, F/M, Politics, Romance, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 14:36:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15245508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: If the world wanted to burn, she'd burn it down.





	its own ways of making people disappear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tessaquayle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tessaquayle/gifts).



Gareth was stroking his hand down her back very slowly, in time with the Bach Partita for Violin he’d turned on as soon as she walked out of the gleaming marble tiled bathroom. He smelled of sandalwood and the faintest hint of geranium, an unlikely cologne she’d once remarked she found irresistible, and the room was soft with the diffuse light from the pillar candles he’d lit. The wicks had all been properly trimmed—not one flickered. 

“Goddamn it, stop,” she snapped. He lifted his hand from her immediately.

“Vivian?”

“I can’t fucking do this, not today,” she snarled. “I don’t want this.”

“No? My apologies, I thought you’d like it,” Gareth said. He’d managed to keep nearly all his wounded feeling from his voice, _nearly_ being the salient word. She tried to sigh but she was too angry still and it came out as a huff.

“I can tell you thought a lot about this,” she said, calming down a little as she spoke. “The whole room reeks of thoughtfulness,” she added, her own temper coloring the words.

“Reeks?” Gareth repeated. “That wasn’t exactly the effect I was trying to create.”

“You know what I mean. Christ! This day, this fucking day,” she said. She closed her eyes as if that would do anything at all.

“What happened?”

“This shitty case and Scotland Yard putting up road-blocks and Brexit, hard, soft, whatever the fuck you want to call it, screwing with my chances of getting any of the French or Belgians to cooperate. Being an ex-pat now is just a nightmare, watching the country fuck itself over from a distance. Fucking us all over, every last one. And fucking Q making fucking eyes at Bond all day long, like a lovesick teenager,” she said.

“This,” Gareth said, gesturing to the room, all romance and delicacy, “isn’t making you feel better? I’d hoped it would, I know you’ve been… frustrated.”

“I don’t want all this sweet love-making, Gareth,” she said. She wanted to bite him as much as kiss him. “Just fuck me. We can do it your way later.”

“My way?” he said but he’d climbed over her, was whispering it in her ear as his hands pulled up the short hem of her ivory silk chemise. There was the softest rustle as he took off his robe, the smallest pause before she felt his cock against her, his hand gripping at her hip, the curve of her ass.

“Gentle,” she said, explaining, not demanding. She moaned as he moved, his rhythm nothing to do with the Bach still playing, everything that she wanted—a selfishness that allowed her to be the same, only after sensation, her own pleasure. 

“Bloody fuck,” he gasped, getting closer. He was rough now and it was what she wanted. It was what she could get.

“More,” she muttered. His lips were at the back of her neck and she felt his teeth grazing her shoulder. She smelled his sweat and hers, the rich scent of her arousal, the sandalwood forgotten. The candlelight was more golden, more animal—it was fire again around them both.

“Whatever you want,” he gritted out, his accent more pronounced, more foreign. More Gareth than M, than Mallory. “This time, Vivian.”

 

The candles burned for hours and they used the light wisely and thoroughly as each other. In the morning, unlike Q, she was satisfied, and Gareth snored so lightly, there was nothing she could mock and no kiss she’d risk waking him to steal.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Adrienne Rich's "What Kind of Times Are These?" This features Dr. Vivian Liu as a proxy for every outraged American physician.


End file.
